Soundtracking: The 2018 Oscar Performances

by Chris Feil

Thank you Lady Gaga, all of the nominated Original Song performances were given a shot to perform on the Oscars! That "Shallow" leverage reportedly kept the ceremony as much of a musical night as possible. Sadly logistics kept us from getting a Kendrick Lamar and SZA performance of Black Panther's "All the Stars", but I found it frustrating that the producers didn't find some way to work the song into the telecast somehow. A montage needle drop, underscoring for the pre-commercial announcements, something?!

Even without Lamar (who also missed the Grammys), the night was a mostly solid salvage of Oscar musical tradition. It certainly fared better than some recent years, and also helped set variety and a pace for the night that otherwise felt a tad too amorphously rushed. A Star is Born's "Shallow" triumphed for the win as expected all season long, but what of the performances themselves? Time for a ranking!...

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13 Times I 'Jennifer Hudsoned' on Oscar Night

by Ginny O'Keefe

Jennifer Hudson [jen-nee-fer hud-son] 
Verb 
Definiton: to nod emphatically in agreement to something while simultaneously mouthing the word “yes”. 

Here are 13 Times I Jennifer Hudsoned on Oscar Night...

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Soundtracking: 2018's Original Song nominees

by Chris Feil

Best Original Song always gets its fair share of side-eye among Oscar snobs and agnostics alike. Granted, some recent nominees have made a decent enough case for their argument - Alone Yet Not Alone, you are lost but not forgotten (or... alone in terms of being a bad nomination). But does this year's crop of tracks continue the category's uptrending in quality? I would argue it does and then some.

While our most expected nominee ("Shallow" obviously) provides the lineup a genuine hit song, we also have idiosyncratic picks as well as musicals and major artists nominated. This leaves the telecast with no rational choice but to allow all numbers to perform on the show, as they have been hesitant to do with lesser known nominees. So in addition to ranking the nominees, I have some suggestions on how to present all of them...

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Soundtracking: FYC 5 Original Song Outliers

by Chris Feil

In lieu of a regular deep dive into the soundtrack of one film, Soundtracking is indulging in some For Your Consideration tracks before the season narrows down to a few contenders. Naturally, all of the talk for original songs this season has been gobbled up by A Star Is Born with some hopes being thrown towards the likes of Mary Poppins Returns, Black Panther, and even Radiohead's Thom Yorke for Suspiria. I'll unpack the field once Oscar reveals its shortlist on December 17 (remember that quiet news item that the Academy will be announcing song and score shortlists all at once along with such categories as visual effects?).

But the outsiders deserve some love too, so allow me to champion a few solid tracks...

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Middleburg Celebrates Diane Warren with the "Impact Award"

by Nathaniel R

Each year at the Middleburg Film Festival, TFE's favorite event is a live concert honoring a film composer. This year Sheila C Johnson, the co-founder of BET who created the Middleburg Festival opted to do things a bit differently. Though there was a composer honored at a smaller event (29 year-old rising talent Kris Bowers who scored both the likely Oscar smash Green Book and the critically acclaimed indie Monsters and Men this year) the main concert and "Impact Award" was reserved for hit-machine songwriter Diane Warren.

This year Warren co-wrote the much memed "Why'd You Do That?" from A Star is Born but her Oscar bid for 2018 will surely be the theme song from the documentary hit RBG, "I'll Fight"

More after the jump including a couple of song snippets...

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